


Unconventional Archetypes in the Umbrella Academy (TV)

by brionylarkin



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: but here we are, no one's gonna read this, we do be writing essays
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:08:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23381446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brionylarkin/pseuds/brionylarkin
Summary: I wrote an essay for my English class about how the hero's journey in tua is expressed differently than usual, and how the character archetypes in the show support this.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 50





	Unconventional Archetypes in the Umbrella Academy (TV)

As the amount of original content grows, every new show or movie or book is inevitably trying to put a new spin on the archetypes its story is formed around, and the _Umbrella Academy_ is no different. The story follows the hero’s journey fairly closely, but instead of focusing on just one character, it focuses on seven. Several characters also embody more than one archetype, this being easiest to see in Five and Vanya. Their roles in the story are complicated in opposing ways, with Five exemplifying more of the hero and Vanya leaning heavily towards the role of the villain. In the _Umbrella Academy_ , archetypal journeys are played out in unconventional ways, starting with these two characters who fit into multiple roles. 

A heroic character, no matter the kind, often has a mysterious origin. In the _Umbrella Academy_ , the seven siblings are the product of spontaneous pregnancies, or virgin births. They are all quickly adopted by Reginald Hargreeves, their mentor, who trains them to reach their full potential. Hargreeves keeps them separated from the rest of the world for most of their childhood, resulting in the type of isolation typical for a heroic character. Their upbringing, combined with their supernatural abilities, mean that they do not fit in with normal children. Their childhood comes to an abrupt end at twelve, when they are forced into the public eye while stopping a bank robbery in classic superhero masks. Since this is the beginning of their original superhero careers, this is their original call. In fact, after participating in missions for a few years as teenagers, the siblings slowly separate. It starts with Five disappearing at thirteen, then leads to Ben dying a few years later. By the time they hit adulthood, all seven siblings have left the others in some way. If this was the end of the story, then their separation to become regular people would be the return and reintegration into society step of their hero’s journey. But this is not the end of their story. 

Soon after their first possible call, Five accidentally jumps sixteen years forward into the future, directly into a post-apocalyptic wasteland. This is Five’s real call. Once he accepts that he is trapped there, he becomes the only person both willing and able to stop the Apocalypse. Five then has to complete his greatest trial: remaining in the destroyed world for forty five years until the Handler comes to offer him a job. The Handler herself can almost be considered a temptress-like character. She offers Five safety, but only on her terms. All Five has to do is work for her and allow the Apocalypse to happen unchallenged, going completely against his self-appointed mission. When he does eventually break away from the Handler, he opens a portal that he does not know will take him to the correct time period. This is seen as Five’s descent into the ‘underworld’, as his destination is unknown until he actually gets there. In the process of stepping through the portal, Five regresses to the age he was when he left his siblings in the first place—a very literal rebirth. He is, however, denied the chance to reintegrate into society because he still has the Apocalypse to stop. 

Five originally starts off working alone, but soon finds himself forced to recruit his siblings’ help, turning his return into a very physical call for them. This call is both magical in origin and much more specific to the characters than them fighting the bank robbers as teenagers. Five is signalling his siblings to start their official hero’s journeys. Stopping the Apocalypse is their real challenge, meaning that the missions as teenagers were merely training. At this point, Five has already gone through most of his hero’s journey, meaning his character arc is being stretched to accommodate his siblings’ arcs. This is another reason that the archetypes in the _Umbrella Academy_ are unconventional. In most stories, each character develops at their own pace, mostly independent of each other, but here, the characters are completely connected. Five triggers the next step in his siblings’ arcs with his role as their call. 

The only character who did not have a call before this is Vanya because her powers were taken away from her, inadvertently denying her her destiny. When Five first returns, he tries to recruit Vanya first. This call could have led Vanya into becoming a hero, with or without her repressed powers, but because Vanya refuses to help Five, she falls into new roles. One of these roles is an antagonist. Vanya’s Shadow, the darker side of her personality and burgeoning powers, leads her to the emotional breakdown that causes her to end the world. Before she becomes aware of her abilities and what has been taken from her, Vanya is functionally a normal person. This rejected call is the beginning of her journey, followed quickly by her training and smaller conflicts with her siblings. This all culminates in the final fight at the end of the tenth episode, where she rejects the possibility of being a hero once and for all. 

Vanya exemplifies multiple archetypes within the show, as does Five. She starts as a possible hero, even receiving a call, but this quickly breaks down into a villain role. On the other hand, because her siblings are dead set on saving her from herself, she also represents the damsel in distress archetype. If this was a traditional fairy tale, Vanya would be both the dragon and the fair maiden. Five is an opposing force within the narrative. He follows the hero’s journey closely, morphing into a call for the other characters only once his journey is nearing completion. As his arc is stretched out to let his siblings catch up, Five even takes on a mentor-like role for them. 

As a mentor, Five leads his siblings in their attempt to stop the Apocalypse, but he also leads them into their own descent into the ‘underworld’. In a last ditch attempt to stop Vanya, Five takes his siblings into the past. In doing so, all six regress in age until they are physically the same age as Five. They are being reborn into an earlier stage in life, just like Five did at the beginning of the season. The siblings travel into this unknown time, but the viewers see no return or reintegration into society. This is how they know that the story is not over yet, even as the season ends. 

The _Umbrella Academy_ rethinks many traditional archetypes, but it also reimagines the classic superhero story. This reimagining presents itself in a multitude of ways, from focusing on seven heroes—or six, depending on how one thinks about it—to having the main antagonist be more of an internal conflict than an external one. This unpredictable assigning of roles makes it harder for the viewers to pinpoint who is the actual antagonist. This moral ambiguity is everywhere within the show and, indeed, the story line would not be as engaging without it. 


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